Dynamic expert solicitation, collaboration and reputation management system

ABSTRACT

A dynamic expert solicitation, collaboration and reputation management system monitors and matches tasks with experts qualified to perform the tasks. The system receives a request for assistance associated with a task from a user. The request for assistance includes task information such as a due date, at least one skill associated with the task, and badges assigned to the task. The system publishes the request for assistance to at least one community of practice web page from among a plurality of community of practice web pages, and obtains a response to the request for assistance from another user. Upon completion of the task, they system allocates the badges to a profile of the second user, and publishes completion of the task to an activity feed of the community of practice web site.

PRIORITY CLAIM

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/702,216, filed Sep. 17, 2012, which is incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This application relates to electronic collaboration tools and applications. In particular, this application relates to embedding collaborative social networking components into electronic client applications to solicit expert help within an enterprise.

BACKGROUND

Client applications, such as those used to perform management, consulting, collaborative, etc. services, often use a complex set of resources and personnel to serve a client's needs. The resources and personnel needed to meet a client's needs may vary throughout a particular business process. With today's business and technology requirements, creating a cost-effective collaboration infrastructure that effectively monitor's a project team's progress, collectively and individually, and that identifies and leverages a business' best personnel and resources for a given project can be challenging.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The system may be better understood with reference to the following drawings and description. The elements in the figures are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the type model. In the figures, like-referenced numerals designate corresponding features throughout the different views.

FIG. 1 shows an example of expert collaboration and solicitation architecture for facilitating collaboration using a social network platform.

FIG. 2 shows another example of an architecture including a Dynamic Expert Solicitation, Collaboration and Reputation Management System.

FIG. 3 shows an enhanced business application interface.

FIG. 4 shows the contents of a Task Timeline tab of the enhanced business application interface of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 shows the contents of an Assign Tags tab of the enhanced business application interface of FIG. 3.

FIG. 6 shows the contents of an Incentives tab of the enhanced business application interface of FIG. 3.

FIG. 7 shows an enhanced expert community page of an enhanced community of practice site.

FIG. 8 shows a skill page the sales community of practice page shown in FIG. 7.

FIG. 9 shows a dialog that may be presented when the community member selects a Call for Help in the feeds of FIG. 7 or FIG. 8.

FIG. 10 shows a page of an enhanced team site used by a project team.

FIG. 11 shows an enhanced profile page for each team member.

FIG. 12 shows a reputation page of the enhanced profile.

FIG. 13 shows a dashboard page that allows the team member to monitor his or her pending tasks.

FIG. 14 shows a dialog box that may be presented as part of the dashboard page shown in FIG. 13.

FIG. 15 shows an example of a process by which a Dynamic Expert Solicitation, Collaboration and Reputation Management System and routes Calls for Help from employees to the relevant experts.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows an example of an expert collaboration and solicitation architecture 100 (“architecture 100”) for facilitating collaboration using a social network platform. The architecture 100 includes a Dynamic Expert Solicitation, Collaboration and Reputation Management System 102 (“collaboration system 102”), a social network system 104, and user portals 106, each of which is configured to communicate over any number or variety of communications network(s) 108. The user portals 106 may correspond to members of a project team, collaboration group or experts using client applications, or other computer software applications, to perform a project or other activity. The client applications executed by the user portals 106 may be augmented via software plugins that provide expert collaboration and solicitation functionality for the software applications. As examples, the client applications may be an office suite application, e.g., Microsoft Office®, WordPerfect Office®, etc., or any other computer software applications. Alternatively or additionally, the user portals 106 may execute software natively written to provide the expert collaboration and solicitation functionality.

The user portals 106 may take many different forms. As examples, the user portals 106 may be smart phones, laptop computers, personal data assistants, pocket computers, tablet computers, portable email devices, or processes executed in memory by a processor. The user portals 106 may be found in virtually any context, including the home, business, public spaces, or automobile.

The collaboration system 102 may facilitate action oriented status updates provided to the social networking system 104. The status updates may be, for example, contextual, automated, or pre-defined. The collaboration system 102 enhances the collaborative activities by providing an easier and more effective mechanism for soliciting expert assistance from anywhere within an enterprise, as well as for both forming and posting the status messages in the relevant groups and forums. The collaboration system 102 also allows contextual and relevant feeds to be available to the user portals 106.

The collaboration system 102 may include communication interfaces 110 that connect the collaboration system 102 to the networks 108, system logic 112, and a user interface 114. The user interface 114 may display a graphical user interface 116. The user interface 114 facilitates setup, configuration, and monitoring of the collaboration system 102.

The system logic 112 implements in hardware, software, or both, any of the processing, user interfaces, reports, and other aspects of the system shown or described below or in the Figures. As one example, the system logic 112 may include one or more processors 118 and program and data memories 120. The program and data memories 120 hold, for example, collaboration instructions 122. The data and program memories 120 may also hold collaboration configuration parameters 124 that guide the operation of the collaboration system 112.

The processors 118 execute the collaboration instructions 122, and the configuration parameters 124 may inform the processors 118 as to how to handle the specific aspects of the collaboration processing described below and shown in the drawings. As a result, the processors 118 and collaboration instructions 122 implement the collaboration techniques described below and shown in the Figures. The collaboration system 102 may accept input from the user interface 114 to change, view, add, or delete any of the configuration parameters 124 at any time.

The social networking system 104 may be Jive®, Tibbr®, Moxie®, Chatter®, Yammer®, Newsgator® or other social network/micro-blogging systems. The social networking system 104 generates updates based on the received event information and pushes the updates back to the collaboration system 102. When the collaboration system 102 receives updates, it populates collaboration interfaces 126. While the collaboration interfaces 126 may appear on the GUI 116, the collaboration system 102 may also push the collaboration interfaces 126 (or updates thereto) to the user portals 106 over the networks 108. The collaboration system 102 may populate multiple collaboration interfaces, each corresponding to a different user or user portal 106. For example, if an expert or other user completes a task or edits a document, the collaboration system 102 may send updates to the collaboration interfaces of other users that are part of the user's project team or collaboration group.

The collaboration system 102 may communicate with social networking system 104 through a communications network 108. The communications network 110 may be any private or public communications network or combination of networks. The communications network 108 connects devices, such as the user portals 106, servers, systems, databases, or other network enabled devices, to other such devices, and thereby supports data communication between the connected devices. The communications network 108 may generally be enabled to employ any form of computer-readable media for communicating information from one computing device to another. The communications network 108 may include one or more of a wireless network, a wired network, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a direct connection such as through a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, and the like, and may include the set of interconnected networks that make up the Internet. The communications network 108 may execute any communication method by which information may travel between computing devices.

The user portals 106 may access the collaboration system 102 via the communications network 110, for example, using a browser application. A browser based implementation allows system features to be accessible regardless of the underlying platform of the user portals 106. For example, the user portals 106 may each be a desktop, laptop, handheld computer, cell phone, mobile messaging device, network enabled television, digital video recorder, automobile, or other network enabled user portal, which may use a variety of hardware and/or software packages. The user portals 106 may also connect to the collaboration system 102 and social network system 104 using a stand-alone application which may be platform-dependent or platform-independent.

The collaboration system 102 may be implemented in many different ways. For example, although some features may be shown or described as stored in computer-readable memories (e.g., as logic implemented as computer-executable instructions or as data structures in memory), all or part of the collaboration system 102 and its logic and data structures may be stored on, distributed across, or read from other machine-readable media. The media may include hard disks, floppy disks, CD-ROMs, a signal, such as a signal received from a network or received over multiple packets communicated across the network.

The collaboration system 102 may be implemented with additional, different, or fewer components. As one example, a processor may be implemented as a microprocessor, a microcontroller, a DSP, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), discrete logic, or a combination of other types of circuits or logic. As another example, memories may be DRAM, SRAM, Flash or any other type of memory. The processing capability of the collaboration system 102 may be distributed among multiple components, such as among multiple processors and memories, optionally including multiple distributed processing systems. Parameters, databases, and other data structures may be separately stored and managed, may be incorporated into a single memory or database, may be logically and physically organized in many different ways, and may implemented with different types of data structures such as linked lists, hash tables, or implicit storage mechanisms. Logic, such as programs or circuitry, may be combined or split among multiple programs, distributed across several memories and processors, and may be implemented in a library, such as a shared library (e.g., a dynamic link library (DLL)). The DLL, for example, may store code that performs the collaboration processing described in this document and shown in the Figures.

The Dynamic Expert Solicitation, Collaboration and Reputation Management System 102 disclosed herein facilitates a more “liquid” workforce that more efficiently gathers the best thinking applied to projects and problems from anywhere within the enterprise, thus reducing or eliminating latent capacity and under-leveraged expertise within most organizations. The ‘liquid workforce’ facilitated by the system 102 reduces the time and resources required to look outside the team for help, thereby increasing the frequency with which that is done, and the effectiveness of doing so.

The Dynamic Expert Solicitation, Collaboration and Reputation Management System 102 includes several components: First, Enhanced Business Applications that make it easy to create tasks and post them to relevant communities. These Business applications also allow for monitoring progress on tasks and work products. Second, Enhanced Community of Practices that are augmented with the following capabilities: a) leaderboards for displaying top experts in various categories, b) reputation management through new badge creation and c) viewing of liquid tasks and sign-on mechanisms. Third, Enhanced Social Profiles that are augmented with a) domain specific badges that make expertise in specific areas visible and b) a richer profile of skills and qualifications that allow better routing of tasks to the right experts. Fourth, Enhanced Team Sites that provide mechanisms for a) easy onboarding of liquid team members, b) creation and discussion surrounding the liquid tasks, c) tracking progress of liquid tasks and d) reward and feedback distribution on completion of liquid tasks. Fifth, an Enterprise Social Network, e.g., Chatter®, Jive®, etc., that is embedded into the other components, and use it to route requests, and coordinating discussions. Sixth, a Gamification Platform that builds richer profile of skills and qualification, creation of domain specific badges and leaderboards for displaying top experts in various categories. The Dynamic Expert Solicitation, Collaboration and Reputation Management System discussed herein includes the framework for how these components will work together to support the liquid workforce capabilities.

FIG. 2 shows another example of an architecture 200 including a Dynamic Expert Solicitation, Collaboration and Reputation Management System 202, such as the system 102 shown in FIG. 1. Each of the components of the system shown in FIG. 2 may be stored in a memory, such as the memory 120 shown in FIG. 1. The system 202 includes social networking adaptors 204 that facilitate communication between the system 202 and one or more social networking platforms 206, such as Jive® or Chatter®, as well as with external vendor tools 208, which may be gamification platforms from vendors like Bunchball and Badgeville. For example, the social networking adaptors 204 may translate event or activity information received from the system 202 into information usable by the various social networking platforms 206. The social networking platforms may then publish the event or activity information to activity feeds embedded into business applications used by an employee, or into community, project team or profile pages.

The system 202 includes a social feed access layer 210 and a SharePoint access layer 212. The social feed access layer 210 and adapters 204 facilitate connection between a business application 214, e.g., MS PowerPoint®, enhanced with a “Call for Help” plugin and the social networking platforms 206. The SharePoint access layer 212 facilitates communication between the system 202 and SharePoint sites 216 that included enhanced community of practice pages, enhanced team pages, and enhanced profile pages. The SharePoint sites 214 are enhanced with custom social feed web parts 218, e.g., discussion groups, activity feeds, Call for Help feeds, etc. The custom social feed web parts 218 may be functionalities provided through the social networking platforms that are embedded into the SharePoint sites. A database 220 stores enhanced social profiles of employees serviced by the system 202.

The system 202 includes social hub service logic 222, which includes an information router 224, message rules engine 226, and database connector 228, each of which may be implemented in software as a set of instructions stored in a memory of the system 202, such as the memory 120. The information router 224 includes logic that directs Calls for Help (also referred to as Requests for Help) to the appropriate community of practice. For example, the information router 224 may match the skill(s) associated with a Call for Help with the expertise of one or more communities of practice. The message rules engine 226 analyzes real time data from social feeds in different social networks and suggests the ‘right’ groups for posting of messages on different social networks and withdrawal of a particular content—Document, Comment, Keyword - across groups and engines. The message rules engine 226 also categorizes the content according to its importance. The database connector 228 issues requisite calls to a database, such as the databases 230, 232, 234. For example, if the information router 224 needs to look up which community of practice has ownership of which skills, the database connector 226 issues a call to the appropriate database, e.g., to the social structure information data database 230. The social hub service logic 222 may also store a program that implements a gamification platform, such as Bunchball, adapted to build employee profiles, as well as leaderboards based on skill level and badges received. The enhanced profiles built by the gamification platform are communicated to the SharePoint sites 216.

The system 202 includes the social structure information data database 230, a tag taxonomy database 232, and an activity instrumentation database 234. The database 230 stores Calls for Help and the information associated with the Call for Help, e.g., the skills involved, badges, due dates, etc. The database 232 stores tag vocabulary related to skills, interests, etc. The database 234 stores behavioral and log data of the employees. The system 202, e.g., using the information router 224, may analyze, based on the data stored in the database 234, patterns of collaboration in order to extend the understanding of collaborative behavior. For example, as will be discussed below, an employee that refer a Call for Help to another employee or to another group of employees. The system 202 may store such information in the database 234. Using this information, the information router 224 may determine a Calls for Help of a certain type of skill are generally referred to a particular person or group, and thus may route a new Call for Help of the same type of skill directly to that person or group in order to maximize the efficiency of the system and reduce the time between when a Call for Help is issued and when it is accepted by an employee.

FIG. 3 shows an enhanced business application interface 300. The enhanced business application shown in FIG. 3 is Microsoft PowerPoint®, but it will be understood that other applications, of the Microsoft Suite® or otherwise, can also be enhanced in the manner disclosed herein. The application interface 300 includes an embedded collaboration feed 302. The collaboration feed 302 may notify a user of the relevant events, including events triggered by the user and by other members of the user's project or collaboration team.

The interface 300 includes a custom “Call for Help” button 304 that enables a user to request assistance from experts outside of the user's project team. If the user clicks on the “Call for Help” button 304, the collaboration system displays a “Call for Help” dialog 306 that prompts the user to provide task information, including a task description provided at a Task Description tab 308, task timeline and/or deadline information at a Task Timeline tab 310, tags associated with the task at an Assign Tags tab 312, and task incentives at an Incentives tab 314.

FIG. 3 shows that contents of the Task Description tab 308. The Task Description tab 308 includes a title field 316 that prompts the user to provide a title of the task in a title field 316 and an explanation field 318 that prompts the user to provide an explanation or description of the task to be performed. The Task Description tab 308 may also include a task type field 320 that prompts the user to categorize the type of task to be performed. In FIG. 3 the task type field 320 is a drop-down menu for inputting the task type. In other embodiments the task type may be entered manually.

FIG. 4 shows the contents of the Task Timeline tab 310 of the “Call for Help” dialog 306. The Task Timeline tab 310 includes an estimated effort field 402 that prompts the user to provide an estimate of how long the task will take to complete. The Task Timeline tab 310 also includes a due date field 404 that prompts the user to provide a deadline for completion of the task.

FIG. 5 shows the Assign Tags tab 312 of the “Call for Help” dialog 306. The Assign Tags tab 312 includes fields 502 through which the user assigns skill tags to the task to be performed. The collaboration system may use the tags to direct the task with the appropriate expert or group of experts.

FIG. 6 shows the Incentives tab 314 of the “Call for Help” dialog 306. The Incentives tab 314 includes a skill field 602 that prompts the user to select a skill that will be awarded to the expert that accepts the task upon completion of the task. The Incentives tab 314 includes a “Select Level” field 604 that prompts the user to select a skill level that will be awarded to the expert upon completion of the tasks. The Incentives tab 314 also includes a “Select Badges” field 606 that allows the user to select badges, from among a set of badges associated with the skill level and/or skill that will be awarded to the expert upon completion of the task. There may be different sets of badges for different skills and/or skill levels. The collaboration system may autopopulate the set of badges from which the user selects the badges to be assigned to the task based on the skill and/or skill level selected by the user.

Once the user has input the task information in each of the tabs 308, 310, 312, 314, the user may select the “post message” button 608. Once the “post message” button has been selected 608, the collaboration system publishes the “Call for Help” to one or more enhanced expert community pages.

FIG. 7 shows an enhanced expert community page 700 of an enhanced community of practice site. The pages of an enhanced community of practice site are augmented with the ability to allow community managers to curate skill badges for the skills that the community owns. FIG. 7 shows an enhanced site corresponding to the sales community of practice 702, with six skills 704, 706, 708, 710, 712, and 714 associated with the sales community of practice. It will be appreciated that that the community may include enhanced sites corresponding to other communities of practice, each of which will have an associated set of skills.

The pages of an enhanced community of practice site are also augmented with a feed 716 that allows the community members, i.e., experts, to view the Calls for Help 718 requested by a user using the enhanced business application discussed above, and facilitates discussion with the task owners about their respective Calls for Help. The community members can sign up for the task or can redirect the Call for Help to the right people or other groups that they think may also be interested in the Call for Help. The community managers can create new badges in an existing skill area and add a brand new skill to the community sites along with the different levels and prerequisite badge scheme for each of the levels of the new skill. Gaining seniority on different skills allows members to curate skills in the future.

Pages of an enhanced community of practice site are also augmented with a separate page for each skill 704, 706, 708, 710, 712, and 714. The skill pages allow community members to view skill progression chart that help them visualize the smaller steps that they will need to perform in order to move up the skill ladder. Each skill is associated with four different levels and each level requires attainment of a pre-requisite set of community curated badges. The skills page also highlights a leaderboard that is customized based on the rank of the viewer of the skills page. The leaderboard shows the top senior most members in the skill area as well as members who are slightly below and above the current page viewer on skill seniority. The skill progression map information and the leaderboards may be pulled in from a gamification platform, such as Bunchball.

FIG. 8 shows a skill page 800 corresponding to the customer relationship management (CRM) skill 706 of the sales community of practice page 700. The skill page 800 includes a feed 802 that includes Calls for Help 804 related to the CRM skill 706. The feed 706 in the main community of practice page 700 shown in FIG. 7 may include Calls for Help associated with any of the skills 704, 706, 708, 710, 712, and 714, while the feeds at the individual skill pages includes Calls for Help associated to the corresponding skill. As discussed above, in issuing a Call for Help, the task owner identifies the skill(s) associated with the particular task. The social feed access layer routes the Calls for Help to the appropriate feeds of the community of practice sites and skill pages.

As discussed above, the CRM skill page 800 provides a skill progression chart 806 that informs the members of the steps that they will need to perform in order to move up the skill ladder 808. In this example, each skill is associated with four different levels and each level requires attainment of a pre-requisite set of community curated badges. The skills page 800 also provides a leaderboard 810 that may be customized based on the rank of the viewer of the skills page. The leaderboard 810 shows the top senior most members in the skill area as well as members who are slightly below and above the current page viewer on skill seniority. The skill progression map information and the leaderboards may be pulled in from a gamification platform, such as Bunchball.

The incentives and reputation mechanism solution allow the experts to choose the tasks that will enhance expertise in different skills areas that are meaningful to them. As discussed above, a task owner, in issuing a Call for Help, associates tasks with skill badges that employees would earn after successful completion of the task.

The collaboration system uses a gamification platform, such as the BunchBall Nitro platform, to create the skill, level and badge schema. The platform is used to define the rules for achieving a skill level by using the prerequisite badges as the conditions required to satisfy the rule. As the user successfully completes the task assigned to him, the completion information is passed to the gamification platform where the badges associated with the task are assigned to the user and are updated in his reputation information.

The CRM skill page 800 also includes an activity stream 812 specific to the CRM skill 706 that provides updates related to the CRM skill, such as when a member earns a badge or advances to another level within the CRM skill.

FIG. 9 shows a dialog 900 that may be presented when the community member selects a Call for Help in the feed 716 or feed 802. The dialog 900 provides information 902 related to the Call for Help, including a deadline, estimated time to complete, contact name, etc. Through the dialog 900, the collaboration system allows a member to accept 904 the Call for Help, suggest another member 906 to whom the Call for Help could be routed, or suggest another group 908 to which the Call for Help could be routed. The dialog 900 also allows the member, i.e., expert, to rate himself/herself 910 and to provide profile information 912 for submission to the task owner. If the task owner receives multiple offers for help, the profile information 912 and rating 910 may assist the task owner in deciding which offer to accept.

FIG. 10 shows a page of an enhanced team site 1000 used by a project team. The enhanced team site 1000 includes a feed 1002 that includes Calls for Help issued by members of the project team, along with the status, required expertise and due date. When a team member issues a Call for Help, the collaboration system populates the feed 1002 with the new Call for Help along with the relevant Call for Help information. The enhanced team site 1000 provides a listing of expert team members 1004 and a listing of regular team members 1006. The enhanced team site 1000 also includes an activity feed 1008 that tracks discussing on any Call for Help posted by team members through relevant feeds pulled in from the social networking platform, e.g., Chatter®, on the enhanced team site 1000.

FIG. 11 shows an enhanced profile page 1100 for each team member. In particular, FIG. 11 is an overview page providing basic information about the team member. The overview page 1100 highlights the member's reputation on various skills. The overview page 1100 provides contact and experience information 1102 about the team member. The overview page 1100 also provides listing 1104 of the team member's recent activities. The overview page 1100 provides a listing 1106 of colleagues that are following the team member.

FIG. 12 shows a reputation page 1200 of the enhanced profile. The reputation page 1200 highlights the levels attained on different skills 1202, provides a chronological ordering 1204 of the tasks associated with the team member. The ordering of tasks 1204 includes associated reviews and badges earned by the team member for a particular level on a skill. The tasks listed in the dialog 1204 correspond which skills are selected in the skills dialog 1202.

The reputation badges help the team members, or employees, increase their seniority/expertise on a skill over a period of time. Seniority on a skill further allows employees to take on more challenging tasks that require deeper level of expertise. In an enterprise scenario, employees care and are motivated towards developing their skills so that they can take on more meaningful and challenging task. Employees also care about enhancing their reputation in that skill so that they are known as an expert within an area, thus people could reach out to them in case of help needed in that skill area and thus are able to create more meaningful impact. This reputation management approach supports and strengthens employee's intrinsic motivation to develop their skill-set and enhance their reputation in various skill areas. The collaboration implements this reputation management approach using a gamification platform, e.g., Bunchball.

Employee reputation can play a central role in finding, vetting, and incenting employees to take on so called certain tasks. Since an employees' impact will typically be spread among multiple projects and managers, gamification mechanisms for recognizing accomplishments, and skills that have been “leveled up”, become critical to give the employee and management a clear sense of what kinds of impact the employee is making when he or she takes tasks on, and for giving task owners an understanding of which employees are qualified to take their tasks on.

FIG. 13 shows a dashboard page 1300 that allows the team member to monitor his or her pending tasks. The dashboard page 1300 provides a listing 1302 of open tasks, along with the task's status. The dashboard page 1300 also provides a listing 1304 of work to be reviewed by the team member, as well as a social feed 1306 that facilitates discussion with other members of the project team about a Call for Help. The listing 1304 or work to be reviewed also includes reviews to be submitted for completed tasks 1308. FIG. 14 shows a dialog box 1400 that may be provided when the item 1308 is selected, enabling the team member to allocate badges 1402 to, and submit a review 1404 of, the expert that completed the task in response to the Call for Help. #

FIG. 15 shows an example of a process 1500 by which a Dynamic Expert Solicitation, Collaboration and Reputation Management System manages and routes Calls for Help from employees to the relevant experts. The system receives a “Call for Help” initiated by the employee (1502). An employee working on a business application, e.g., PowerPoint®, requiring assistance that may not be adequately provided by members of the employee's project team can initiate a “Call for Help” by selecting a “Call for Help” button embedded into the business application by a plugin. The system obtains “Call for Help” information from the employee (1504). The plugin, or the collaboration system itself, prompts the employee to provide information about the “Call for Help”, including skills involved, a due date, a description of the task, badges that will be assigned upon completion of the task, and other information discussed above with respect to FIGS. 3-6. Upon receipt of the “Call for Help” and the associated information, the system routes the “Call for Help” to the relevant community or communities of practice pages (1506). The system may route the “Call for Help” based on the skills associated with the “Call for Help”. For example, if the “Call for Help” relates to questions about international cultures for a presentation, the system may route the Call to a community of practice of menu planners whose members are company experts on international events, as well as to a certain number of experts on various regional cultures. The system may also route “Calls for Help” based on an analysis of historical behavior related to “Calls for Help” having similar skills. The system publishes the Calls for Help to the Call for Help feeds of the relevant community of practice pages. The adapters of the system translate the Call for Help information for use by a social networking platform, which then publishes the Calls for Help to the relevant feeds.

The system obtains a response to the Call for Help (1508). A response is received via the social networking platform when an expert responds to the Call for Help published to the feed of his or her community of practice page. When a Call for Help is accepted, the social networking platform updates the employee's activity feed, e.g., the activity feed embedded in the business application being used by the employee, to inform him or her of the acceptance. The social networking platform may also update the activity feed of the employee's enhanced team site.

The system determines whether the accepted task has been completed by the expert (1510). The expert may transmit or upload work product for review by the employee that issued the Call for Help; such events may be published to the activity feeds of the team and community of practice sites, as well as to the employees Dashboard page. For example, the employee may see a task pending on his or her Dashboard page that requires the employee's review. The employee that issued the Call for Help may identify when the task is complete.

Upon completion of the task, the system allocates the relevant badges to the expert, and updates the expert's profile page and the relevant community of practice pages (1512). The system may determine whether the newly earned badges advance the expert to a new skill level, and update the expert's enhanced profile page accordingly. The system may also update the expert's enhanced profile page with a rating and feedback provided by the employee that issued the Call for Help. Using the gamification platform discussed above, the system updates the leaderboards of the enhanced community of practice pages. The badges may also be allocated automatically upon completion of the task. The system may also compare the completion date to the due date and only allocate badges if the completion date is on or before the due date.

While various embodiments of the invention have been described, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that many more embodiments and implementations are possible within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not to be restricted except in light of the attached claims and their equivalents. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A dynamic expert solicitation, collaboration and reputation management system, comprising: a processor; and a memory in communication with the processor, the memory comprising: instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: receive a request for assistance associated with a task from a first user, the request for assistance comprising task information comprising a task due date; at least one skill associated with the task; and badges assigned to the task; publish the request for assistance to at least one community of practice web page from among a plurality of community of practice web pages; obtain a response to the request for assistance from a second user; determine whether the second user has completed the task; based on a determination that the second user has completed the task: allocating the badges to a profile of the second user; and publish completion of the task to an activity feed of the community of practice web site.
 2. The system of claim 1, further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: generate a leaderboard comprising a relative ranking of members of the at least one community of practice, wherein the second user is one of the members of the at least one community of practice; and publish the leaderboard to the at least one community of practice web page.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein generating the leaderboard comprises using a gamification platform.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein the gamification platform comprises a Bunchball platform.
 5. The system of claim 2, further comprising instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: update the leaderboard upon completion of the task; and publish the updated leaderboard to the at least one community of practice web page.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein publishing the request for assistance to the at least one community of practice web page from among a plurality of community of practice web pages comprises: transmitting the request for assistance information to a social networking platform; updating a social networking feed embedded into each of the at least one community of practice web pages with the request for assistance.
 7. A method for dynamic expert solicitation, collaboration and reputation management, comprising: receiving a request for assistance associated with a task from a first user, the request for assistance comprising task information comprising a task due date; at least one skill associated with the task; and badges assigned to the task; publishing, using a computer processor, the request for assistance to at least one community of practice web page from among a plurality of community of practice web pages; obtaining a response to the request for assistance from a second user; determining whether the second user has completed the task; based on a determination that the second user has completed the task: allocating the badges to a profile of the second user; and publishing, using the computer processor, completion of the task to an activity feed of the community of practice web site.
 8. The method of claim 7, further comprising: generating a leaderboard comprising a relative ranking of members of the at least one community of practice, wherein the second user is one of the members of the at least one community of practice; and publishing the leaderboard to the at least one community of practice web page.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein generating the leaderboard comprises using a gamification platform.
 10. The method of claim 9, wherein the gamification platform comprises a Bunchball platform.
 11. The method of claim 8, further comprising: updating the leaderboard upon completion of the task; and publishing the updated leaderboard to the at least one community of practice web page.
 12. The method of claim 7, wherein publishing the request for assistance to the at least one community of practice web page from among a plurality of community of practice web pages comprises: transmitting the request for assistance information to a social networking platform; updating a social networking feed embedded into each of the at least one community of practice web pages with the request for assistance.
 13. A product, comprising: a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a computer processor to: receive a request for assistance associated with a task from a first user, the request for assistance comprising task information comprising a task due date; at least one skill associated with the task; and badges assigned to the task; publish the request for assistance to at least one community of practice web page from among a plurality of community of practice web pages; obtain a response to the request for assistance from a second user; determine whether the second user has completed the task; based on a determination that the second user has completed the task, allocating the badges to a profile of the second user; and publish completion of the task to an activity feed of the community of practice web site.
 14. The product of claim 13, wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the computer processor to: generate a leaderboard comprising a relative ranking of members of the at least one community of practice, wherein the second user is one of the members of the at least one community of practice; and publish the leaderboard to the at least one community of practice web page.
 15. The product of claim 14, wherein generating the leaderboard comprises using a gamification platform.
 16. The product of claim 15, wherein the gamification platform comprises a Bunchball platform.
 17. The product of claim 14, wherein the instructions, when executed, further cause the computer processor to: update the leaderboard upon completion of the task; and publish the updated leaderboard to the at least one community of practice web page.
 18. The product of claim 13, wherein publishing the request for assistance to the at least one community of practice web page from among a plurality of community of practice web pages comprises: transmitting the request for assistance information to a social networking platform; updating a social networking feed embedded into each of the at least one community of practice web pages with the request for assistance. 